Poetry

Now She’s Done It

/ Arambler / 3 Comments

“I wish I could speak sky.”
—Richard Hell (“Boy Meets Death, Boy Falls in Love” in Hot and Cold)

And still a shadowy figure
and steady footsteps stamping the rain
behind me cause trouble. I must retire
from this life before

it retires me. Says the old one, says
who. Five o’clock on a Friday flows
in both directions—make it three,
four, more. I see

the water sculpture gain
momentum as it spills off
the edge of a tower
atrium balcony. They move

waterfalls on rivers
as famous as the Mississippi
and others you can’t name too. What
should I do

with you now? Hot and cold. I flip
through it in a crowded Starbucks—sketched
penises fly by. And you—naked
on one page. I can’t stop

to stare/admire you/it.

In a crowded Starbucks.
That’s what I get
for pulling you out

here—for taking in
my daily double shot

espresso in a crowded Starbucks
in the first place. The last place
would be where a stranger refuses
to pass me.

Streamlines

/ Arambler / Leave a comment

A meeting rumbles in the back
room. I could be
one of them. But

I like my margin
where I can hitchhike
rides to dark dreams

and musings
about collocating
my secrets with old

punk gods. I could delve
into euphoric recall

from a passenger
side high in a flying

coffin. Repentance. It was those
black leather police
jackets that got very cool.

Wise Disguise

/ Arambler / Leave a comment

The way a punk
unravels slowly,
then zap—nothing left
save the recovered voice
of a city transient. Or, a dead

man wrapped in stray
dog’s fur. Or,

poems spilling
red over black.

Who Says April Is

/ Arambler / 4 Comments

Somewhere someone
decided this is our
month. As if all

the told slant
truths might bloom
simultaneously in a city

garden bed. Everyone’s talking
about getting wisdom

teeth pulled
today. From some non-euphoric
recall, I see nothing

poetic about it
save the prescription

for codeine
I couldn’t afford
to get filled.

Soap Song

/ Arambler / Leave a comment

“The life I live,
The one I hoped
To live—
How seldom
They coincide.

Sometimes, briefly,
They do;
Sometimes, in the city.”
—Gregory Orr, from The City of Poetry

And after all
that commotion
attraction betrayal
ecstasy memory
loss anarchy sexual
tension breaking
open night by night.

And after all
that walking waiting
crowding into a small
room sipping and spilling
coffee onto an unfinished
factory wood floor watching
it run

down the sloped boards
into seams
between checking
to see if the dark
river has dried up
smiling at the man
who asks

how are you

when he sits next to me.

This seat
will do.

And after all that
the reader

who is a writer
who was a punk musician
who stands on
an invisible stage
before us

is shorter
with a much warmer smile
than I imagined the founder
of the Blank Generation
to have.

This ragged sometimes damp
sometimes arid line I walk along
separates the punks
and rockers from the poets
and storytellers DJs and
critics from spoken word
artists and the rest of us.

And after all that
I see the line
wasn’t really there.
I’m just rambling
through it. Imaginary
borders don’t dissolve
till we outgrow them.

How To Define Punk to a 12 Year Old (or, Richard Hell at the Soap Factory)

/ Arambler / Leave a comment

Who lives
in this post-post-modern polyphonic
blitz? Blitz—not
bliss. I love

that anarchy—murder
of the omniscient
narrator. Reliable, or
not. Or,

is it an assassination? Did she
(or he) hold
political office? Or, at least
run? I could be running

to go to Hell
on time. I have a VIP seat, but
I should get
going. Don’t want

to miss a word. Think
of all those voices shouting
out of turn

their individual versions
of what it means
to burn in, burn on,
burn out.

Third Person Polyphonic

/ Arambler / Leave a comment

Narratives flood the garden
of sound. Why does rocking
a cradle calm them—shake
trebling from all those voices?

She can only hear two
knocking about
in her head now.
When it comes down

to a single
deepening whisper,
she’ll know she’s arrived
home for the night.

It Will Bend

/ Arambler / Leave a comment

A big, bold-faced metal paper
clip causes a bump
in her writing. It affixes
a lost father’s
face to a daughter’s
daily desire to become attached

to just the right
image. A reminder—like the callus
on her left
middle finger. Not a gesture
of defiance, but a gentle nod
to left-handed beauty

and respect. And a big black
bird scrapes the sky overhead.

Seven Months

/ Arambler / Leave a comment

No ode—pastoral
or urban
myth—will do. No
flag raising
in any pattern or
color. No parades—though
he loved them.

It’s an odd.
A prime.
The current count:

7 days to make a week.
7 notes on a musical scale.
7 attributes of physicality.
7 words to Step 7 begins humbly.
7 home states plus one.
7 children and grandchildren.
7 months to make a preemie.

Some say seven is
this world.
What comes next? I might ask him.

To listen for an answer
in night-falling murmurs
of an otherworldly pulse becomes
the point—not the answer itself.

Color Mnemonics

/ Arambler / Leave a comment

Fear is the only four letter word
I need to say
to be free. Another season begins

to break
without him. A patch of sidewalk
ice melts

into a small lake, freezes again
overnight. Spring
can’t get any traction. Somewhere

an empty suitcase, an empty raincoat,
an empty tomb. Don’t forget (a parent
or sister might say)
to snap

a mental picture
of those ocean waves breaking
open another calm
after a late winter storm.